Sips: Notes from shift #3

On regulars and making eye contact.

I worked my third shift at the wine bar last Thursday. A woman asked me if her ex-partner ever really loved her. A man asked me how much he should tip. I tasted some wine that at first smelled of nothing, but then smelled of limes and tasted like zest. I tasted another wine that smelled of plums and dark berries and tasted like stems. I recognised one regular and had to remind myself of another but eventually got to her name. Regulars intimidate me because although I’m working at the bar, they know more than I do. They know who comes in when and how long they stay. They know who’s new, who’s a tourist and where they’ll likely sit. But mostly, they know us. They see how we move behind the bar. They listen to how we speak to customers, describe different wines and give us knowing looks when someone is behaving strangely. I’m making mental notes of their names and what they usually order. I want them to like me, so that they’ll be on my side.

There was a girl who was on a date with a boy, which turned out not to be a date, but definitely seemed like one. They shared pasta like Lady and the Tramp. I think he’s into her but she’s not so into him. I also think that this dynamic has been going on for a while and that every time she introduces him as “my friend” he cries a little inside. He’d done his hair with a lot of fancy product; she hadn’t.

My friends came for a wine and a chat and we started talking about how we all work in fictional worlds — unreal places of numbers and spreadsheets and Slack pings that we enter at 09h00 and exit at 17h00. I tell them that if I still lived in Dublin, I’d work in a wine bar full-time and be able to pay my bills. How service work has always tickled a particular part of my brain that complements the other things I like doing — that when I work behind a bar, I write more, I sleep better, my anxiety goes down. “Bartending feels real” I say, with instant regret, wishing I’d thought of a less cringe way of saying how good it feels to look people in the eye, to smell their perfume and ask them what wine they feel like drinking.

A table of four drank six bottles of wine. White wine. Chenin Blanc. I can’t drink more than a glass of the particular Chenin Blanc they were drinking — the kind my dad likes to drink, it tastes like sour apples and guava — before it starts tasting like paint thinners, but they couldn’t get enough. They also didn’t seem drunk. People have impressive constitutions.

A Chenin Blanc I can drink more than one glass of, even two or three, is To Maike and The Rest (2023) from L’equinox. It tastes like dried peaches dipped in rosemary salt. I bought a case at the beginning of summer and have been trying to work through it slowly — which is challenging, because I keep reaching for it. I want to drink it when it’s hot, and I’ve just got home from a sea swim with a craving for a salted crisp and a glass of wine. But I also want to drink it when there are grey clouds in the sky, and I’m in a jersey and I’m making some form of pasta, with kale and salty cheese. It’s weighty, without weighing me down. And it doesn’t give me a headache.

I don’t know enough about wine to tell you the difference between sour apple Chenin and salty peach Chenin, but I’m guessing the one is made with a lot of interference and the other is made with as little as possible. The former lives in the category of South African Chenin that tastes like an orchard — apple, guava, or grapefruit, even a heady combination of all three. They also somehow always taste the same. Even if there’s more guava, or apple, even a hint of stone fruit, they still always taste the same — of orchard.

Salty peach Chenin can sometimes taste like apricots, or sour candy. Sometimes it doesn’t even taste like peaches at all. It can taste like salted honey butter and smell like fynbos. One bottle can be more tart, the other juicy. Sometimes I suck my cheeks in and other times it feels like they’ll explode. The other day I had a Chenin that tasted like pear crumble, but the kind a health food store would make. I tasted raisins and lemon zest, and stewed Forelle pears. I didn’t love it, but I had a glass, because I was just happy I wasn’t tasting guava, or apple. I imagine it might go well with a hard cheese.

A friend I worked with in Dublin once told me that what she hates about conventional wine, is how a bottle of Chenin from 2019 can taste exactly the same as a bottle from 2023. I agree. This feels weird to me, especially because the world was a different place in 2023 compared to 2019. Wines shouldn’t be time capsules.

I’m trying to work through the bar’s bottle list, so I bought some wine for home. On Saturday, I tried the Van Niekerk Rebellie Grenache Noir and it tasted like wild berries and cigarettes. It was smooth and juicy but also a little bitter and peppery, so I wanted more. I like wines that don’t give me everything in the first sip, even first glass. Juicy reds are often too forthright. They give everything up—the fruit, the power—all at once. I like a wine that gives me an appetite, not one that satiates it. I had steak with charred broccoli and potatoes for dinner and it didn’t feel like quite the right fit. The wine started feeling too full in my mouth and I was relieved when it was finished. Next time, I think I’ll pair it with a curry — something spicy— with herby rice and crispy poppadoms. But I learn these things as I go.

Illustrations by my sis, Catherine Paterson.